Dear Friends of the Pub Quiz,
When I first starting writing Pub Quizzes, I realized that my wife Kate made a great sounding-board for potential questions. Widely-read, media-savvy, and inherently fair, Kate would offer candid responses to the questions I would share with her, pointing out to me on more than one occasion that “normal people wouldn’t know such a thing.” No doubt she dramatically improved the quality of the Pub Quiz over the years, such that now I have internalized her wise voice and opinions when I am putting together questions, even when I haven’t shared possible questions with her ahead of time.
During one particular Pub Quiz, at another venue, Kate gathered together some of her smartest friends to form a team, and so she remained un-briefed on potential topics or wordings. Nevertheless, that week her team won first place. Professionally, I was aghast. What’s worse, she and her teammates named their team “Dr. Andy’s Family.”
You can imagine the uproar from the other teams. One player even wrote a letter of concern to management. I found out later that he made a habit of writing letters on a great number of occasions, to a great number of people, for he felt personally and perpetually wronged. Come to think of it, he is being wronged again right now. I’m sure he has moved on to grander windmills. The paranoid survive, as Andrew Grove said.
Anyway, after that experience I came up with what has been called “The Kate Rule.” Anytime Dr. Andy’s beautiful wife plays the Pub Quiz, your quizmaster may not ask a question that he knows she knows the answer to. The result was a series of over-challenging quizzes on topics obscure and literary: I really had to put my PhD to work during those weeks. Of course players would rightfully groan during and after those quizzes, and soon grow thankful not to see Kate appear in a booth with a group of other friends, all of them drinking wine and plotting strategies for difficult questions.
As I’ve become more experienced at this Pub Quiz business, I’ve found in recent years that I haven’t had to transform the Quizzes as I once did when Kate would join us. The thrill of winning is delightful, Kate’s teams realized, but it pales before other joys, such as the pleasure of the company of some of one’s closest friends (and without the interruptions of cell phones – babysitters are on their own). Now Kate and her smaller teams help me in other ways, such as by writing comically incorrect answers that serve to delight the rest of you when I work them into the presentation of the actual answers at the end of the evening. How else would I have learned about Lil Dwayne? The uproarious laughter I hear from the surprised and entertained teams helps me recognize a successful Quiz.
As my friend Denise reminded me last week, such teams are like those who keep their cell phones hidden in their pockets and purses for the entire night (rather than looking up all their questionable responses as soon as a scorecard has been submitted), for they maintain their eager anticipation until the end of the show. I think of a Kahil Gibran quotation that has been shared during many a wedding ceremony: “In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.”
Tonight’s Pub Quiz will feature questions on pleasant fragrances, Pope Francis, Wikileaks, hammers, accomplished ladies, the silent T, sheaves, pot, cuckolds, people not named Kanye, sad cities, formulae, great Frenchmen, drama, nicknames, comedy, sports fans in Canada, guitar words, comedians, productive writers, rovers who are maniacs, love letters, high points (in meters), sugar, liberty, Academy Awards, the word “lachrymose,” blue skies, The Beatles, deaf culture, baseball, headwaters, Maggie Smith films, famous people who date each other, singers with new memoirs, Terry Eagleton quotations, Castille, banned books, lyrics, South America, compounds, and Shakespeare.
The students have returned, so come early to claim a table! See you tonight.
Your Quizmaster
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Here are five questions from last week’s quiz:
1. Mottos and Slogans. What company promises that it is “everywhere you want to be”?
2. Internet Culture: NASA Memes. What kind of animal was NASA referring to when in its recent comments on an Instagram launch photograph it wrote “The condition of the BLANK, however, is uncertain”?
3. Newspaper Headlines. Is the new Miss America African-American, Indian-American, Mexican-American, or Irish American?
4. Animated Films. What 2012 animated film featured the voices of Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Fran Drescher, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade and CeLo Green?
5. Pop Culture – Music. On September 27, 2012, a 30 year-old rapper born with the name Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. passed Elvis Presley as the male with the most entries on theBillboard Hot 100 chart with 109 songs. By what name is Carter better known?
P.S. Thanks to John from the Practicing Polymaths for attending my poetry reading Friday!